Every two weeks, somewhere around the world, a human language is lost* – that is, an entire tribal group loses its intimate connection with an essential part of its culture and history as the last fluent speaker of its native tongue passes.

Of the world's estimated 7000 spoken languages there are 478 with less than 100 individuals with fluency and 140 with less than 10 fluent speakers. Every 10 to 14 days one of these languages goes extinct... forever.

A notable aspect of this extinction is that while much notice, rightly, is given to the disappearance of animal habitat and diminishing numbers of elephants, lions, rhinocerous, mountain gorillas and myriad other species, most people have no knowledge of the rapid and irrevocable extinction of human languages. While a language that has dwindled to a few remaining fluent speakers is almost certainly beyond recovery (without massive commitment of its remaining members pulling together in a resuscitation effort) many researchers are making last-ditch attempts to at least record some of the 85% of our human languages for which there is no record. No one, however, is making a concentrated effort to systematically photograph these lonely individuals of once-vibrant populations, these Last Speakers.

The United States has lost more languages than any other country since World War II: fifty-three native American tongues have gone extinct. A good grasp of the nation's dominant language, English, is a necessary skill if one wishes to integrate and "get ahead". The situation is similar around the world whether that dominant language be Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic or one of the other 79 most-spoken languages; these 85 dominant languages are used by about 78% of the world's 7 billion people while the least spoken 3,500 languages, in total, have only 8.25 million speakers.

Small languages, more than large ones, provide keys to unlock the secrets of nature, because their speakers tend to live in proximity to the animals and plants around them, and their talk reflects the distinctions they observe. Russ Rymer, "Vanishing Languages." The National Geographic Magazine, July 2012.

Small . Russ Rymer, "Vanishing Languages." The National Geographic Magazine, July 2012.

On this project I will be working with both still photography and video. The still camera systems are the Leica M-P 240 digital camera with the Tri-Elmar-M 16-18-21mm, Summicron-M 35mm, Zeiss Sonnar-C 50mm and Canon 85mm (a 1959 chrome beauty) lenses and the the Fuji X-T1 (or Fuji X-Pro2) with the seven lenses I own for the system. I will carry the Photoflex LiteDome Q3 Light Modifier with flash for fieldwork fill-light as well as other small supplementary lighting and reflective umbrellas.

As many, perhaps most, native peoples have been treated shabbily in their countries, it is not always an easy task to get permissions to photograph in their communities. We anticipate spending at least five days, perhaps more, in each location to gain familiarity and acclimate both our Last Speakers to us and us to them. As a former anthropologist I know this to be daunting but believe it to be do-able with the help of the sorts of local 'fixers' I have always used in my travels to pre-arrange, where possible, site visits.

This is a nearly moribund language of the Puelche
people in the Pampas region of Argentina. Long considered as a language
isolate, there is very limited evidence that it may have been related to the Querandt of the Het people, or the Chon languages.
According to Ethologue, it may still have five or six
speakers, if it is not extinct yet.

| Pazeh

This is the language of a Taiwanese aboriginal people, which
originated from the Austronesian language. While there was only one remaining
native speaker of the language, 96-year-old Pan Jin-yu,
she was able to teach 200 regular students in Puli
and a few students in Miaoli and Taichung before her recent
death.